Full Dark, No Stars

The third time he turned the crank, our old truck bel owed into life. He retarded the spark, gunned the throttle a time or two, then drove away. He was gone for almost an hour, but when he came back,

the truck’s bed was ful of rocks and soil. He drove it to the edge of the wel and kil ed the engine. He had taken off his shirt, and his sweat-shiny torso looked too thin; I could count his ribs. I tried to think when I’d last seen him eat a big meal, and at first I couldn’t. Then I realized it must have been breakfast on the morning after we’d done away with her.

I’ll see that he gets a good dinner tonight, I thought. I’ll see that we both do. No beef, but there’s pork in the icebox—

“Look yonder,” he said in his new flat voice, and pointed.

I saw a rooster-tail of dust coming toward us. I looked down into the wel . It wasn’t good enough, not yet. Half of Elphis was stil sticking up. That was al right, of course, but the corner of the bloodstained mattress was also stil poking out of the dirt.

“Help me,” I said.

“Do we have enough time, Poppa?” He sounded only mildly interested.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Don’t just stand there, help me.”

The extra shovel was leaning against the side of the barn beside the splintered remains of the wel -cap. Henry grabbed it, and we began shoveling dirt and rocks out of the back of the truck as fast as

ever we could.

When the County Sheriff’s car with the gold star on the door and the spotlight on the roof pul ed up by the chopping block (once more putting George and the chickens to flight), Henry and I were sitting on the porch steps with our shirts off and sharing the last thing Arlette James had ever made: a pitcher of lemonade. Sheriff Jones got out, hitched up his belt, took off his Stetson, brushed back his graying hair, and resettled his hat along the line where the white skin of his brow ended and coppery red took over. He was by his lonesome. I took that as a good sign.

“Good day, gents.” He took in our bare chests, dirty hands, and sweaty faces. “Hard chorin’ this afternoon, is it?”

I spat. “My own damn fault.”

“Is that so?”

“One of our cows fel in the old livestock wel ,” Henry said.

Jones asked again, “Is that so?”

“It is,” I said. “Would you want a glass of lemonade, Sheriff ? It’s Arlette’s.”

“Arlette’s, is it? She decided to come back, did she?”

“No,” I said. “She took her favorite clothes but left the lemonade. Have some.”

“I wil . But first I need to use your privy. Since I turned fifty-five or so, seems like I have to wee on every bush. It’s a God damned inconvenience.”

“It’s around the back of the house. Just fol ow the path and look for the crescent moon on the door.”

He laughed as though this were the funniest joke he’d heard al year, and went around the house. Would he pause on his way to look in the windows? He would if he was any good at his job, and I’d

heard he was. At least in his younger days.

“Poppa,” Henry said. He spoke in a low voice.

I looked at him.

“If he finds out, we can’t do anything else. I can lie, but there can’t be anymore kil ing.”

“Al right,” I said. That was a short conversation, but one I have pondered often in the eight years since.

Sheriff Jones came back, buttoning his fly.

“Go in and get the Sheriff a glass,” I told Henry.

Henry went. Jones finished with his fly, took off his hat, brushed back his hair some more, and reset the hat. His badge glittered in the early-afternoon sun. The gun on his hip was a big one, and

although Jones was too old to have been in the Great War, the holster looked like AEF property. Maybe it was his son’s. His son had died over there.

“Sweet-smel ing privy,” he said. “Always nice on a hot day.”

“Arlette used to put the quicklime to it pretty constantly,” I said. “I’l try to keep up the practice if she stays away. Come on up to the porch and we’l sit in the shade.”

“Shade sounds good, but I believe I’l stand. Need to stretch out my spine.”

I sat in my rocker with the PA cushion on it. He stood beside me, looking down. I didn’t like being in that position but tried to bear up patiently. Henry came out with a glass. Sheriff Jones poured his own lemonade, tasted, then gulped most of it down at a go and smacked his lips.

“Good, isn’t it? Not too sour, not too sweet, just right.” He laughed. “I’m like Goldilocks, aren’t I?” He drank the rest, but shook his head when Henry offered to refil his glass. “You want me pissing on every fencepost on the way back to Hemingford Home? And then al the way to Hemingford City after that?”

“Have you moved your office?” I asked. “I thought you were right there in the Home.”

“I am, aren’t I? The day they make me move the Sheriff’s Office to the county seat is the day I resign and let Hap Birdwel take over, like he wants to. No, no, it’s just a court hearing up to the City.